MOMENTUM (MObility manageMENT for the Urban environMENT) is an R&D project, carried out for the Directorate-General VII (Transport) of the European Commission as part of the Fourth R&D Framework Programme. The consortium consists of organisations from most member states and Switzerland. The overall aim of the three year project (1996-98) is to assess mobility management in Europe as a user-based systems approach complementary to traffic planning. Mobility management is emerging as a promising tool to reduce traffic through the co-operation of different transport services and the development of innovative transport concepts. Leicester City Council, one of the MOMENTUM partners, is working with other local organisations - two universities and a hospital. They generate approximately 50,000 daily trips to the city centre, of which 60% are car trips according to travel surveys recently carried out. Other findings reveal great potential for modal shift. What seems to be lacking is a good co-ordination and information of services available, especially public transport, and adequate incentives to use alternative modes, for both commuting and business journeys. This paper presents the results of these travel surveys and focuses on what measures each of these organisations have or will put into place to counteract the trend in car growth and car dependency through mobility management strategies. Leicester City Council also aims at setting up a mobility centre at the site level to provide its employees all sorts of information and advice on how to plan their journeys to work as well as other journeys.
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